Culinary Careers

Which Culinary Careers Are Right For You? Explore Culinary Arts Careers

When most people think of culinary careers, they immediately think of a chef, but in reality, studiying in the culinary field can give you many career options, even outside of the kitchen. Getting a culinary degree can be the key to your success and increasing almost any culinary arts salary.

In the world of culinary arts, you can decide to go big and become an executive chef, essentially running the kitchen and controlling all the food preparation and staff, or you can aspire for different paths like becoming a sommelier or even working behind the scenes as a product developer. Here are some of the many career choices you have.

Culinary Entry-Level Jobs

A culinary arts career can start out as simply being a busperson, waiter or host. These entry level jobs are often stepping stones into the restaurant world and can easily become bigger and better things. You could also choose to attend advanced culinary arts schools and work behind the scenes as a nutritionist, or in food and science technology, developing and researching in a lab instead of a kitchen.

In the kitchen, there is an entire hierarchy of staff, from the demi chef, who is usually a specialist in making one type of food, to the senior chef, who can handle many things but doesn't usually specialize, to the sous chef, or executive assistant, to the executive chef, who runs the show. These are the main chef job description duties we know about, but there is a lot of preparation involved in serving food, and each job in between is another stepping stone.

A large kitchen will have many food preparation workers, who are responsible for chopping, cutting and preparing all the ingredients for the recipes. There are also cooks, who are not trained in the culinary arts, but who help prepare the menu and mix ingredients. Each of these positions are an important part of the production line, and a kitchen cannot run without any of them.

If you would prefer to specialize in sweets, there are culinary careers that simply focus on baking. A pastry chef has early hours but a rewarding task when piping hot bread is ready for the first customers. A pastry chef could work in a bakery, overseeing staff, decorating pastries and cakes and baking bread, or in a restaurant kitchen, in charge of all desserts.

Culinary Managerial Positions

Many culinary arts careers escalate to managerial positions; one of the most common being a restaurant manager. A restaurant manager needs to oversee the functions of the restaurant and ensure good quality food, service and safety. You will also need analyse projected sales, organize marketing campaigns, budget and plan menus. It is a fast paced job that requires a lot of planning mixed with patience and hospitality.

Other management careers can include catering management, where you might manage a restaurant, bar, hotel facility or run a catering business, hospitality management, which focuses on running operations in a hotel or a culinary manager who is otherwise known as the executive chef. To attain any management level position, you will need to get your 4 year bachelor degree and have impeccable organizational skills.

There are so many different culinary careers available at every level that you need to seriously decide what area is right for you. You can specialize on how to become a chef or do it all, working behind the scenes or managing in front of everyone: the choice is yours.

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